Spirit (Blackwood Security, #10.5) - Elise Noble Page 0,9

joyrides in Russia, and I suspected they had rules on children flying in them too. Perhaps a Czech-built L-39? Or something older like a Hawker Hunter? I’d need to make a few calls…

“What about an executive jet?” Dan suggested. “Or a helicopter?”

“I love helicopters!”

Thanks, Dan. “Perfect. A helicopter. In that case, we just need to decide on a day.” I consulted the oracle that was my calendar, carefully updated by Sloane, my office assistant, because I was hopeless at doing it myself. “I’m free on—”

“Can I have a word?” Jonah Campbell asked. “In private?”

Now what? “Sure.”

Jonah led me into a room that was more of a storage closet. An untidy desk fought for space among stacks of dusty boxes and bags of sports equipment. Should I sit? Typically in a situation like this, I’d stay standing rather than giving up the advantage of height, but Jonah didn’t seem to be trying to intimidate me. His demeanour was more…tired. Jaded. Slightly wary. I perched on the edge of the desk, hands in my lap, and waited for him to speak.

“Who are you, exactly?”

“What are you looking for? My life history? A business card? Or something more philosophical?”

“I want to understand why you’re doing this.”

“This?”

“Getting kids’ hopes up. I’ve seen your type before—do-gooders who use a place like UCan to make themselves look good on Instagram. What’s it called…corporate charity?”

“Corporate social responsibility?”

“Yeah, that. And once you’ve got your pictures, you just disappear without doing a thing.”

“You sound as if you speak from experience.”

“Twice, people have promised Kiara the earth and not delivered. She writes to everyone, you see, begging to go flying. The first time, some guy promised to take her up in one of those small planes, but then he ghosted on her. And the second time, she got bumped at the last minute because there was a more deserving kid.”

“A more deserving kid?”

“That’s what they said. One of those wish foundations. Guess I can’t blame them if the other kid was sick. But how do you explain that to a nine-year-old? Kia cried for weeks. And then I worked overtime for six months to pay for a flight—barely saw Dorothea that whole time—and the company took our money and went out of business.”

Now I saw where Jonah’s wariness came from. Being burned not once but three times didn’t exactly foster trust, especially as he didn’t know me from Adam.

“Well, I’m not representing a corporation, I definitely don’t want to be in any photos, and I’m not in the habit of letting people down.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

Hmm… How to explain without sounding like a spoiled rich bitch… Or the Grinch.

“You know what they say about Christmas—that the joy is in the giving rather than the receiving? Well, this year, my friends and I thought we’d donate our gifts and also help out a few people who haven’t gotten the breaks they deserve.”

“But why?”

Truthfully? Because I didn’t fancy spending the whole of December cleaning up reindeer poop, and no way would Bradley go near a shovel.

“Because we can.”

“I don’t want Kiara getting upset again.”

“I give you my word that won’t happen. We’ll arrange a date and a time, and I’ll be there.”

“You’ll be there?”

“Indeed I will. I’m the pilot, and it’s my helicopter she’ll be flying in.”

“You own the helicopter?”

If Jonah planned to question every answer, this was going to be a really long day. Still, I forced a smile.

“Yes, I do.” Technically, Black’s name was on the registration, but he’d told me a hundred times that what was his was mine as well. Our drunken, spur-of-the-moment nuptials had come with a lot of perks, not least him finally ending up in my bed every night. Our bed. Whatever. “I have a picture of it on my phone. See?”

Okay, so I’d taken the picture to show Black that Bradley had decided to repaint the helipad in a chequerboard pattern, but the helicopter was in the photo too. Bradley had also bought giant chess pieces to make the helipad “multifunctional.” Black had sent a two-word reply that rhymed with “duck knee.”

Jonah peered at the screen, and I finally got the faintest hint of a smile out of him. Progress.

“Why don’t we go and show Kiara, and then we can arrange a day that suits all of us?”

Now he turned sheepish. “Sorry if I sounded ungrateful.”

“It’s okay; I get it. Nobody wants to let their kid down.”

I didn’t want to let Kiara down either, despite the fact that kids made me twitchy